'Sex Play' for Teens Promoted in Animated Cartoon Produced by Planned Parenthood

(CNSNews.com) - In an animated video cartoon on its Web site, the Planned Parenthood Federation of America advises teens that taking part in "sex play" and "outercourse" can greatly reduce their risk of getting a sexually transmitted infection (STI).

The cartoon, on the "Teen Talk" portion of the Planned Parenthood Web site, features Tina the Farmer who gives viewers a tour of her “Sexually Transmitted Infections Petting Zoo.” At the end of the video, viewers are asked to take a quiz.

The second question on the quiz asks about protecting oneself from getting a STI.

“The only way to protect yourself from sexually transmitted infections is not having any sex play at all," the second quiz question asks.

There are two choices to click on to answer: “This Sounds Right” and “This Couldn’t Possibly be Right.”

If you click on “This Sounds Right,” animated creatures representing the STIs run across the screen and scream “WRONG!”

By clicking on the “correct” answer--“This Couldn’t Possibly be Right”--quiz takers are rewarded with the visual and audio message “RIGHT-O” and this message appears:

“You can still get it goin’ on without having intercourse. Ever hear of outercourse? That’s right, outercourse. Outercourse includes body rubbing (people who are less polite might call it ‘dry humping’), masturbation, deep kissing, and erotic massage. Outercourse can GREATLY reduce the risk of many sexually transmitted infections--unless body fluids are exchanged through oral sex or anal intercourse."

Planned Parenthood, which, according to its annual report for 2007-2008, got $349.6 million dollars from the federal government, did not respond to repeated calls and e-mails from CNSNews.com asking several questions, including what age group the cartoon is targeting, whether the organization believes the cartoon encourages teens to be sexually active, and if any of the federal funding the organization received went toward producing the cartoon.

In the cartoon, Farmer Tina says nature gives us lots of good things, like cows and pigs. Then she shows viewers a pen filled with sexually transmitted infections.

“Let’s see, there’s herpes and gonorrhea over there. That’s Chlamydia and genital warts fighting over a warm place to breed. That’s syphilis and HIV over yonder there just waitin’ for someone to get careless so they can hop over the fence and put a serious hurtin’ on ya,” Tina says.

Then the cartoon shows a naked man and woman partially hidden behind a cow.

“And look at this over there,” Tina says. “That dude and dudette over yonder just don’t get it. They’re horsin’ around without a condom. Puttin’ themselves at great risk for getting one of those sexually transmitted infections."

“STI are bad news,” Tina says. “You don’t want to catch them and you don’t want to pass them on neither. The good news is there are things you can do to reduce your risk. So take this little quiz and the only place you’ll see these nasty infections is right here in my overpriced pettin’ zoo.”

Wendy Wright, executive director of Concerned Women for America, said the cartoon is in opposition to Planned Parenthood’s claim of the importance of medically accurate information being used in "comprehensive" sex education programs for teens

“It’s medically inaccurate,” Wright said about the answer to the Planned Parenthood quiz stating outercourse reduces the risk of getting a sexually transmitted disease (STD) or an STI.

Wright said genital human papillomavirus (HPV)--one of the most common sexually transmitted diseases and one that is linked to uterine cancer in women--can be transmitted genital-to-genital or skin-to-skin without intercourse or the exchange of bodily fluids.

“This is very important because Planned Parenthood, Guttmacher (Institute), the whole comprehensive sex-ed crowd insists that the government should only fund sex-ed programs that are medically accurate,” Wright told CNSNews.com. “In this case, the information they are putting out there is medically inaccurate."

Wright said she thinks that the cartoon’s message also will mislead teens about the risks of being sexually active.

“For a teenager--and teenagers are the target market here--they are going to read that and they are going to come away with the deepest impression that as long as you don’t exchange bodily fluids, as long as you don’t have oral, vaginal, or anal sex then you are safe from getting an STI or an STD and that’s just not true,” Wright said.